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Let’s imagine a scenario. The England football team are preparing for this summer’s World Cup. The FA and Thomas Tuchel don’t arrange a single meaningful warm up game. Instead they organise a kick around amongst the players while party music blares from speakers. The strikers humiliate Jordan Pickford, England’s goalkeeper, and destroy his confidence to the point that he then becomes unselectable for the World Cup.

After losing their opening two games to Croatia and Ghana, the whole squad goes on a six day bender in Cancun, where Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham are pictured staggering around bars. On their return, Declan Rice grins to the media that they had a “belting time”. England go on to lose to Panama and are immediately knocked out of the World Cup. Nobody loses their jobs. Imagine the uproar back home, the reaction of the fans, the media outrage.

This may sound far fetched but it is exactly what the England cricket team did on last winter’s tour of Australia. This was their best chance to win the Ashes Down Under in a generation and they blew it. Worst of all, many of them didn’t seem to care.

It’s not a one off, either. Since returning and vowing that lessons have been learnt, we have had the Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson nightclub incident followed by the scenes this week of Brydon Carse being handcuffed by the police while, guess who, Stokes again lurks in the background. Obviously Stokes has retired from England duty now and can do whatever he wants but doesn’t it seem almost sad, pathetic even, that a 35 year old married father of two seems to spend so much of his time in an environment more often frequented by teenagers and twentysomethings? At what point do you decide you’re too old to be constantly getting into petty scuffles in clubs? Stokes’ England career may be over but those of Carse, Matthew Potts, who was also there, and Gus Atkinson, who joined him on the infamous London night out in June, are still ongoing. Surely, the old captain should have care for his former players instead of joining them in jeopardising what are already painfully short careers.

This piece is not some moralising article about how professional sportsmen should all be finely tuned athletes who have no fun and are in bed by 9pm with a cup of tea and the latest episode of University Challenge. Going for a drink with your teammates is part of the fabric of the game and should remain so. Ironically, Ben Stokes, himself, claimed cricket has a “drinking culture”. I detest that phrase. It’s one of those ghastly, woke idioms that seems to have weaved itself into the fabric of our society, like “toxic” and “problematic”, that actually doesn’t mean anything in itself but is used as a stick to beat those who don’t match up to the false standards created by the fun police on social media.  Cricketers spend far more time on the field and far longer away from their families and friends than any other professional sportspeople. It is a unique game where you inhabit the same dressing room as your teammates for five days at a time and the same hotel rooms for months on end. Bonds need to be forged between these men to make the situation tolerable and there is absolutely nothing wrong with forging those bonds over a pint. There is a famous old cricketing saying that “you learn the game in the bar”. Most of the previous generations will attest that to be true. Players have learned far more about the intricacies of our game over a pint with grizzled ex-pros than from coaches with an array of shiny qualifications. Where they probably don’t learn the game however, is on a sweaty dancefloor, where bemused twenty year olds wonder why a bunch of middle aged dads in skinny jeans and impossibly white trainers are prancing around like the cast of the Inbetweeners.

Herein lies the real issue. This is not a team with a drinking problem, it is a team with a maturity problem. It is often said that professional sportsmen never grow up but this lot have taken it to extremes and it’s not hard to see why. The whole culture of “Bazball”, probably a phrase even worse than “drinking culture”, encouraged a complete lack of responsibility. Cost your team a Test match by reverse scooping and getting caught on the boundary? No worries, as long as you’re having fun! Don’t feel like practicing today and want to play golf instead? No problem, the captain, coach and Director of Cricket will join you. Who needs net sessions anyway!

If you tell young men there are no consequences for what they do on the pitch, they will start to believe there are no consequences for what they do off it.                       

Brendon McCullum may have been the laisse-faire, laid-back supply teacher, so keen to be everyone’s mate that he allowed the kids to do what they wanted, but Stokes is the standard bearer for this whole culture. It was Stokes who began the hubris of Bazball in the first place, stating that his team were in the “entertainment business, not the results business” and that they would “live forever in the memory of those lucky enough to see us play”. What utter bilge. When he later complained that “my dressing room is not a place for weak men” in Australia, the irony was clear to everybody but Stokes himself. If England had a dressing room full of weak men, then who was responsible for that?

Perhaps worst of all, was how a man who had captained England for four years, who gave everything he had to English cricket, unfathomably decided to sacrifice a Test series in a bonfire of his own vanities. The Sunday of the Trent Bridge Test against New Zealand was one of the most shameful episodes in the history of English cricket and it’s staggering that it hasn’t received more scrutiny and criticism than it did. First, Stokes announced his retirement as a series deciding Test match hung in the balance. Then he pushed himself up to open the batting to feed his hero complex, while destroying the confidence of a young man in only his third match, Emilio Gay, by shunting him down the order. Then there was the wild, deliberately reckless slogging of Stokes himself, Duckett and worst of all Harry Brook. The vice-captain’s innings of 21 off 9 balls, before being caught on the boundary immediately after the Kiwis had spread the field, is one of the most disgraceful performances by an individual player in living memory.  It should have led to a long absence from the England team, not a ringing endorsement from the departing captain of Brook as his replacement.

Even worse, was the sheer arrogance of Stokes and McCullum in the aftermath. There were no apologies, no regret, just a disingenuous claim that the mindless slogging we had just witnessed was part of a genius, tactical plan that the rest of us mere mortals were not intelligent enough to understand. The Bazball leadership just had to take us for fools one last time. The sight of New Zealand’s players openly laughing at England on the field and asking “what are they doing?” should be this regime’s epitaph. That is what will “live forever in the memory” of those who saw them play, not the entertainment that came before.

The culture of this team has been rotten for some time and English cricket itself has become a national joke. Blaming drinking misses the point. These are not young men who need to confine themselves to a cup of cocoa. These are men, often not so young, who need to realise that they are living incredibly privileged lives, being paid vastly more than any generation of cricketers before them, living out the dreams of millions of people who part with large sums of money just to watch them play. In short they need to grow up. At the moment they are the people you avoid on a night out. You know the sort. The group of men who come into the bar straight from the gym, wearing clothes they are way too old for, no socks, covered in pointless bling and just looking for an opportunity to show off, start a confrontation and display their fragile masculinity to the world.

Hopefully with the quietly dignified Joe Root back in charge this culture will start to change. Joe is cut from a different cloth. The younger players in the dressing room, and Harry Brook in particular, would do well to follow his example.

In fact, when you next win a game lads, just go and have a few pints in the pub with your mates and go home to your wives and girlfriends. They’re probably worried about you.

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So here we are again. Nine years after Joe Root first led out an England team against South Africa at Lords he will begin his second innings as Test captain on an overcast morning at Headingley with Pakistan as his opponents.

That day in August 2017 went rather well for Joe. Winning the toss and electing to bat, he made 190 in the first innings before England went on to win by 211 runs. Of course, the struggles since were many and well document which is why a few question marks hang over England’s most successful ever batsman this time around.

In many ways, the reappointment of Root is a damning indictment of the last four years of English Test cricket. This is nothing against Joe, whose willingness to take on the burden of leadership again is admirable in the extreme. Rather, it sums up the problems of a culture, under Stokes and McCullum, where players were not encouraged to take responsibility for their own actions, let alone for their teammates. There was a revealing moment last winter when Zak Crawley, a veteran of 64 Tests, said that he “doesn’t feel like a senior player. I don’t think anyone in this team truly does”. If a man who has played over half a century of Test matches for England didn’t feel like a senior player then who would? Of course, its hardly surprising considering that Crawley, along with Harry Brook, Ben Duckett and others, spent their formative years in the Bazball environment.  This was a dressing room where over practicing and, in the words of Liam Livingstone, “caring too much” were discouraged while personal expression and reckless decision making without consequences was discouraged. This is not an environment that breeds leaders. Couple this with the style of Stokes leadership, where the captain’s natural instinct was to carry all burdens himself, rather than delegate, and it is easy to see why, when Rob Key and the two Richards looked around for England’s next captain, the only man they could alight on was the one who had done the job before.

There is reason to believe that this time will be different for Root, however. Despite being England’s greatest batsman and longest serving leader, he has never been regarded in the pantheon of great tactical captains. Much criticism of him centres around his tenancy to let things drift in the field, as was evident again during the partnership between during New Zealand’s second innings at Trent Bridge, after he had stepped in for the suspended Ben Stokes. It would be unfair to judge Root on that game, of course, given the situation. Indeed, even when considering the Yorkshireman’s first spell as captain, it is worth remembering that he was faced with circumstances and events that no England captain before or since has ever had to deal with.

First of all, when he took the job in 2017, it was arguably the first time in the history of English cricket where the Test team was not the main priority. Andrew Strauss, as Director of Cricket, had decreed that the forthcoming 50 over World Cup in England in 2019 was to be the be all and end all. The number one priority was to build a team capable of winning that tournament for the first time. As a result, a one-day specialist coach was appointed for both red and white ball cricket. Trevor Bayliss was an excellent man manager but his hands off style suited the more experienced and established white ball captain, Eion Morgan, far more than the inexperienced Root, who would surely have benefited more from a hands on, mentoring coach like Duncan Fletcher or Andy Flower.

For the first time as well, the ODI team had preference over the Test team when it came to the availability of players. Morgan would have first pick if there was a conflict of interests and Root become the first Test captain not to be able to field his best XI if it was felt players needed rest and rotation.

Then, after England’s World Cup victory at Lords, Root was handed a coach who had never before managed at international level in Chris Silverwood. This was just in time for the Covid pandemic, an unimaginable scenario when he had taken the reins in 2017.

To this day, those of us who weren’t there can surely never fully understand the mental strain placed on Root and his men in those dark days of 2020 and 2021. The endless days and nights locked in hotel rooms in bio-secure environments in Southampton and Manchester, and then, in even worse circumstances, in Australia. The endless invasive testing. The denial of the opportunity to even socialise with teammates, let alone see friends and family. Solitary confinement is used the world over as a torture technique to mentally break prisoners and political dissidents. Yet here were the England cricket team, the elite of their sport, young men who had dreamed of what playing for their country would feel like, living under these conditions day after day, month after month. No amount of fame or money can compensate for that.

The 2021-22 tour Down Under broke Root and his team mentally.

Joe Root has never spoken in detail about the effect it had on him, leading his team through all this, baring the responsibility for everyone’s well being. He has carried that burden with the quiet dignity with which he has dealt with everything in his career. It must have affected him deeply though, and surely still does.

The hope is that this time round, freed of the burdens of a global pandemic and leading a team on which the whole of English cricket is focused on their success, we will see the real Joe Root. A man freed from the burdens which marred his first spell in charge, free to give his all for the sport and the nation he loves. It starts here and the whole country is behind him.

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When the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket labelled the game an “elitist sport” in 2023, I must admit I took it with a pinch of salt. After all, much of the rest of the report had more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese. It employed the sort of anecdotal evidence and selective research that a spotty A Level student would know to avoid i…

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I’ve been thinking how to write about The Hundred for a while now. Personally, I loathe it and have always loathed it but a good journalist should always try to rise above their own prejudices to consider things from all sides so here goes.

First of all, I get the appeal of the initial competition, especially to families. It was a cheap night out, with lots of music and entertainment for the kids, a bit of cricket thrown in and less of the stag night atmosphere that some Blast games had become. I know many people, for instance, who had become regular attendees of Oval Invincibles games and even formed some sort of attachment to the team itself. I could see that, particulary for new spectators, this competition could actually seem quite enjoyable, and, who knows, might even prove to be a gateway to the actual sport itself. The damage to county cricket was so obvious that I don’t really need to go over it again here but after four years I imagine some of these teams might actually have supporters who actually cared about their results, even though the whole thing seemed vapid and pointless to me. I wasn’t the organisers’ target audience, after all.

Then this season happened. We knew the IPL-ification of the English summer would be bad but did any of us realise it would be this truly, mind numbingly awful? The worst thing isn’t even the team names (MSG v Mumbai Indians London for example) or the unbearably cringey team songs uploaded to social media, it is the sheer emptiness and meaningless of it all. What is it actually all for, other than a licence for the ECB and the already super rich franchise owners to make more money? Why should we even care?

To find the answer I started to wonder about why we even care about professional sport in the first place. After all, most of us don’t know any of the wealthy, athletic young men and women that spend their lives kicking a ball around, hitting things with a bat or driving a car very fast and yet we spend as much money as we can afford, and often what we can’t afford, buying tickets to see them perform or ordering expensive TV packages so we can watch them from the comfort of our homes. We even buy overpriced shirts with our favourite teams and players on them so we can display our loyalty publically. To the uninitiated, all of this makes absolutely no sense. However, after much thought I decided that the reason we do this is far more than just because we wish we were living their lives. We devote our time and loyalty to sport because it is a part of us. We relate to a team because we see something of ourselves in it, it could be pride in our local town or a connection with family and friends passed down through generations. Sometimes we are drawn to a team far from where we live because its history and the culture of its fanbase strikes a chord with us. Either way, we find something that we identify with, beyond the players on the field.

All of this is why professional sport has thrived since the 19^th century and it is exactly what the administrators and team owners of today are trying to take away. Cricket is not the only game that is going in this direction. Gianni Infantino turned the recent football World Cup into a showcase for potential wealthy investors into FIFA . Stefano Domenicali, the boss of Formula One, recently gave an interview where he said that the artificial nature of much of the racing in the sport’s current era of regulations doesn’t matter because George Lucas, of Star Wars fame, told him that fans don’t care about engineering or how the cars work, they just want to enjoy an exciting, cinematic spectacle and aren’t remotely interested in whether any of it is actually real.

The conclusion I reached, after reflecting on all this, is that sport is now content. Just as Netflix or Disney+ only care about the quality of their shows in connection to how much streaming or user engagement they generate, so the administrators and owners of our sports only view the action on the field through the bottom line of global viewing figures, YouTube hits and social media reposts. The actual quality and meaning of the competition itself is irrelevant to them.

Looking at it from this viewpoint, The Hundred makes perfect sense. Why bother with county teams with over a century of history and a loyal but dwindling membership when you can create shiny new teams whose badges, colours and names link with recognisable brands all over the world. You might not care about the Super Giants or the Sunrisers but someone in Lucknow, Cape Town or Kathmandu might and that is the engagement with the content that the administrators want.

These new teams may look and feel artificial, elephants in Manchester for example, but that’s part of the image. These are global brands, not local identities. It doesn’t even matter who wins or loses so long as everybody gets paid.

Lots of cricket fans on X have been speculating whether the billionaire team owners of these new Hundred franchises are sweating on their investment because of the low crowds at many grounds. Let me save you the trouble, they’re not. The ILT20 in the UAE is regularly played in front of virtually empty stadiums. At some games the two teams’ coaching staff outnumber the spectators but it doesn’t matter. The tournament still attracts lucrative TV deals and massive investment from IPL teams, not to mention the vast amounts gambled globally on all franchise leagues. All of these leagues exist to make money for team owners, TV companies, host boards and players. The fact that no one actually watches is neither here nor there. If no one cares that’s fine as long as the sponsors and broadcasters are still engaged.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with a choice whether to be consumers or supporters. The structure of the world we live in is dependent on consumers, from 30 second content creator clips on YouTube Shorts to takeaways of questionable quality on Deliveroo and Uber Eats. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a consumer. If you want to wear your Sunrisers shirt and marvel over another soaring six from Harry Brook on artificially short boundaries that’s OK. However, at the end of it, consuming often feels a rather empty, hollow experience. The song streamed on Spotify is not as rewarding as the album listened to and appreciated as the artist intended and the “hot take” on social media is rarely as enjoyable as a considered, long form article. Shaun Pollock, that wonderful, combative standard bearer for the South African game said it best. He likened Test matches and long form cricket to a lovingly cooked Sunday roast while limited overs games were more like a fast food takeaway. “Both are enjoyable” he would say “but in the end you prefer the roast”.

Many people seem to prefer their roast dinner. Counties have seen record crowds for the much maligned One-Day Cup this year. Despite many clubs playing with virtually a second XI due to players being poached for the Hundred, grounds have still been packed. Some, including Durham, have actually sold out matches. Seeing Ben Stokes take such obvious joy in turning out for his county has been heartening too. Not all the players have forgotten that county cricket got them to where they are, not soulless franchises.

One of the biggest arguments for the Hundred is that it is needed to attract the younger generation or Gen Z, to use that ghastly phrase. I think that’s nonsense. The other day I went to a record store for the first time in ages. I was trying to return to a slower, gentler pace of life that I missed. I was struck by how the shop was filled with teenagers, happily sifting through shelves of vinyl, CD’s and even cassette tapes. It made me think, maybe you don’t need something loud, shallow and fleeting to attract young people. After all, they are just like everyone else. Eventually they tire of cheap thrills and seek out something deep and meaningful. Something like a nice, long day at the cricket, perhaps.

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English cricket was at its lowest ebb in the Summer of 1999. Not only had the side crashed out of their own World Cup before the official song was even released but defeat to New Zealand in the summer’s Test series meant England were unofficially ranked as the worst team in the world. In this moment of humiliation, one man stride on the Oval balcony to face the cacophony of boos from the South London crowd. That man was Nasser Hussain and he was about to grab English cricket by the scruff of its neck and drag it away from the abyss.

Alec Stewart had lost his job as captain after the World Cup debacle and, as new skipper, Hussain was tasked with taking over a ship that, if not exactly sinking, had certainly taken on a great deal of water.  Immediately he looked to put his own stamp on things. Perceived troublemakers sidelined under Stewart's regime, Andy Caddick and Phil Tufnell, were welcomed back to the fold. Caddick responded with a second innings burst of 5-32 before nightwatchman Alex Tudor’s 99* not out led England to a stirring victory. It proved to be a false dawn , however, as old frailties re-emerged in a demoralising defeat at Lords, a game famous for young wicketkeeper Chris Read having his stumps splayed while ducking into a slower ball from Chris Cairns. As a metaphor for England’s failed new beginnings it could not have seemed more apt.

A damp draw at Old Trafford followed before the nadir at The Oval. England seemed well on top when reduced New Zealand to 39-6 in their second innings. However,the hosts had picked three genuine number 11’s in Alan Mullaly, Phil Tuffnel and debutant Ed Giddins. The sight of Mullaly walking out to bat at number 9 summed up the chaos of the era.  

England collapsed to 162 all out, an 83 run defeat and fell to last place for the first time in Wisden's international rankings. The media predictably piled in. The Sun ran a front page spread of burning bails declaring, once again, the death of English cricket and that the remains would be cremated and taken to New Zealand while the Daily Mail made allegations of players drinking heavily the night before the final day’s play. Plus ca change indeed.

For this writer, as an 11 year old new to the game watching his first ever Test series it was quite an introduction! Surely it couldn’t always be this bad?
Apparently it could, as Hussain’s first overseas Test in charge, now in conjunction with new coach Duncan Fletcher, saw England 2-4 after half an hour’s play on a Johannesburg green top against a rampant Shaun Pollock and Alan Donald. The following morning’s Daily Mirror published a back page photo of a few England players laughing on the balcony under the headline of “What are you lot laughing about?”. It didn't matter that the photo was taken later in the day and was completely unrelated to the early collapse, such was the media landscape in the 1990’s. Modern cricketers have no idea how easy a ride they are given in the press compared to their predecessors. I have often thought of how the 90’s tabloid media would have reacted to the antics of the Bazball boys on tour in Australia, particularly the media pronouncements of the likes of Harry Brook, Ben Duckett and McCullum himself. It wouldn’t be pretty.

From these rocky beginnings though, Hussain and Fletcher began to build something. The South Africa tour ended in inevitable defeat, but respectable defeat, not the humiliation that had looked likely on that damp morning at the Wanderers. Incredibly, four consecutive Test series victories followed, a first at home to the West Indies in 31 years and victory in the dark in Pakistan and on volatile pitches in Sri Lanka, in an era when England never ever won on the subcontinent.

 Hussain’s tenure is, perhaps, not as fondly recalled as those of the men who followed him and his record pails compared with those of Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss. Perhaps this is due to his abysmal record against Australia but it may also be as a result of his confrontational and aggressive approach with players. Many of his former charges remember being on the receiving end of one of the captain’s infamous tongue lashings. Some, such as Matthew Hoggard, recall him screaming in their faces over the smallest of issues. This approach could be counterproductive some of the time, particularly with younger players who often found the lack of support challenging. Marcus Treskothick remembers Hussain not even speaking to him for the entirety of his debut Test in 2000. It certainly contrasts with Michael Vaughan’s arm round the shoulder approach to new arrivals.

The key difference with Nasser Hussain, however, is the team he inherited. The battle scars of numerous thrashings at the hands of Australia and the West Indies were visible on many players. It was a team that needed a man who would not accept failure, one who would root out mediocrity and instill a new belief in his players, a man who would force his team to stand face to face with their opponents. It was a team that needed Nasser Hussain.

The perfect example of the new captain’s attitude came at Lord’s in the summer of 2000 against the West Indies. Having already lost the first Test, England had been bowled out for 134 in their first innings to concede a 133 run deficit. Many England teams of the recent past would have folded but Hussain’s response typified his never say die attitude.  “Right lads!” he told his players in the dressing room. “If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down our way! Lets pepper them”. Andy Caddick and Darren Gough proceeded to do exactly that, as the West Indies were bowled out for 54 in a hail of short balls before England completed a famous victory the following day.

The team went on to complete a 3-1 series victory and Nasser Hussain’s legacy as the first England captain to win the Wisden Trophy in 31 years was complete. His reaction as the final wicket was taken at The Oval was not one of joy or exultation but a simple dropping to his knees, hands on head, seemingly overcome by exhaustion.  His own intensity seemed to overwhelm him at times. After all, although the pressure he put on other players could seem almost impossible, it was nothing compared to the pressure that he put on himself.

In the early days, this high intensity approach was just what England needed to drive the team out of the wilderness years.  Pakistan were memorably defeated in almost total darkness at Karachi in the sort of backs to the wall, against the odds victory that the captain would have derived great pride from before England went toe to toe with Sri Lanka in a combustible series marred by player clashes and terrible umpiring. Hussain’s England team never took a backward step and emerged 2-1 winners against Muralitharan, Jayasuria and Vaas in their prime.

As the years went by, though, the siege mentality that Hussain liked to create around his team started to take it’s toll. At times he seemed to be burdening his players with unnecessary pressure which stifled their natural joy in playing cricket. One wished that he could, just once in a while, take the handbrake off and let his team express themselves but this was never his way. His fierce competitiveness and desire to win could even be shown in his other interests. A lifelong Leeds United fan, he switched to supporting Arsenal upon Leeds’ relegation in 2004 saying “I did not want to take my kids to Championship football”.

Two heavy defeats at the hands of Steve Waugh’s all-conquering Australians have coloured people’s views of Hussain’s team and were, more than anything, his undoing. His decision to bowl first at Brisbane in 2002-03 has gone down in infamy.  Coming back from that series, England were beaten down and jaded. The Zimbabwe crisis during the 2003 World Cup had also taken its toll on the captain and his men. For days, the England players had been locked away in their hotel rooms, agonising over whether to play a match in Robert Mugabe’s country, from both a safety and a moral perspective. In the end, England were the only team that refused to go, an honourable decision which ultimately cost them their place in the World Cup but one which stood Hussain and his men apart from those who would simply bury their head’s in the sand and hide behind the old adage that “sport and politics should not mix”.

As the following summer progressed, as often happens when a captain has been in situ for a long time, players no longer seemed to be responding to Hussain’s voice. Michael Vaughan had taken seamlessly to the one day captaincy and the younger players, in particular, were enjoying a more relaxed style of leadership. England’s Test captain felt he had lost his grip on the team, his powers were fading.  

The first Test against South Africa that summer was particularly dismal. As Nasser Hussain sat in the dressing room during another rain break, while England tried to recover from Graeme Smith’s crushing innings of 277, he knew it was all over. That evening, after a flurry of phone calls to friends and family to gather advice, he made his decision. The team needed a new voice. The following morning he went and found Michael Vaughan and, according to the new captain’s autobiography, offered him the job as Vaughan was finishing off a bacon sandwich.

In such inauspicious circumstances, the baton of leadership was passed from one man to the other. Michael Vaughan would go on to far greater things than his predecessor but he would do so standing on the foundations that the Essex man had built. History records the men that scaled the mountains more than those who forged the path but English cricket owes a great debt of gratitude to Nasser Hussain. Without his hard work and perseverance at what was, at times, a thankless task, the glory days of 2005 and 2010-11 that followed may never have happened.

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On the face of it, Stephen Fleming looks like a good appointment as England men’s Test coach. He is experienced, comfortable handling elite players and will hopefully develop a more organised team culture than the freewheeling McCullum era without creating the sort of suffocating intensity that some of the other candidates might have brought with them.

However, dig a little deeper and serious questions start to emerge. Firstly, Fleming, just like Brendon McCullum before him, has no experience coaching red ball cricket. 17 years in charge of the Chennai Super Kings franchise in the IPL means that he has no problem managing elite level players but Test cricket is a different beast. We saw many times during McCullum’s tenure that the strategies and game management required to deal with the longest format were beyond his ability to coach. Bazball was a cover for many things, not least the lack of technique in modern English batsmen, but it was also a cover for McCullum’s lack of basic coaching technique and willingness, or ability to, imbue his players with the application and dedication needed at this level.

Yes, McCullum and Fleming were both accomplished and vastly experienced Test captains but captaincy and coaching are two very different disciplines. One requires man-management and tactical acumen on the field. The other requires the honing and fine tuning of technique, something Duncan Fletcher was outstanding at, and the creation of a tactical playing style and framework which enables players to bring out the best of their abilities, a philosophy, if you will, to use that dreaded modern coaching word.

The chaos that English test cricket currently finds itself in, with players that lack the basic ability to build an innings or read a match situation, requires a Test match specialist coach, not another white ball expert. Andy Flower always felt like a retrograde step, despite the much publicised change in his approach since he strangled the life out of England’s dressing room towards the end of his last tenure. Returning to a former coach implies that you have failed to move forward, develop and plan for the future. The same applies to a former captain, which is why the return of Joe Root, wonderful player and personality that he is, is also a worry, especially when one considers the complete dearth of viable leadership candidates in the rest of the dressing room.

For this writer, Justin Langer would have been the perfect choice. Yes, he is famous for his intense approach, which is what ultimately led to his players manoeuvring to remove him from his role with the Australian team, but perhaps that is just what England need right now. The infamous 4^th innings at Trent Bridge last month showed, once and for all, a team that is completely lacking in the basic professionalism required for international sport. To see the New Zealand players openly laughing at England and asking “What are they doing?” as Harry Brook was caught on the boundary for a mindless innings of 21 off 9 balls, was a far greater humiliation than the defeat the Kiwis inflicted on England in 1999. Then, there was a sense that this was rock bottom and that, under the leadership of Nasser Hussain and, latterly, Duncan Fletcher, there was a plan to take England forward. This felt the opposite. English cricket at the moment is completely directionless. A whole generation of players have grown up under McCullum’s tutelage with a complete lack of personal responsibility and the belief that all that matters is having a bit of fun and entertaining the crowd. Brook, vice captain and supposed heir apparent to Stokes, is the poster boy for this movement. When he gets caught on the boundary with six fielders out and a few overs left in the day, when he grins from ear to ear to the media and describes what a “belting time” the England lads have had on their booze cruise in Noosa while 2-0 down in the Ashes, he is merely following the culture he has been raised in as an international player. When Rob Key states, as he did yesterday, that Brook “needs to sort himself out”, the question must be asked of the men who oversaw a culture where England’s brightest and best young players were encouraged to behave and play in this way. Key himself must shoulder some of the blame, although he seems to lack the self awareness, at least publically, to do this.

Given all the bloodletting at the ECB in recent weeks, it seems hard to understand how Rob Key is the only senior figure within the national men’s set up who remains in a job. Listening to him talk since the Ashes debacle and since does not inspire confidence. Indeed, most of the time he sounds like he is just winging it. Openly speculating whether a complete alcohol ban is required for England’s players, before deciding it is only needed during and after games, something McCullum ignored in the recent white ball series anyway, is not how managing directors usually behave. Policies should be debated and decided behind closed doors before being presented to the public as final, decisive decisions, not ruminated about in the national media. Key’s discussion about Ben Stokes coming out of retirement yesterday was not helpful either. Stokes has made his decision and made it clear that it is final. If he chooses to change his mind later that is up to him, it is not fair on either Stokes or the players tasked with taking England forward for the MD of English cricket to continually speculate in this manner.             

Key was very fortunate to survive the winter chaos. Indeed, it seems almost inconceivable that a managing director who signed off on a tour programme with no formal warm up games, no specialist coaches, a practice match played to the background of party music where England’s batsmen destroyed the confidence of their only frontline spinner, and a mid series drinking holiday that seems to have been the only part of the tour that was meticulously planned, is still in a job. In any other sport, none of this would be tolerated. It reflects poorly on the professionalism of English cricket that it has been here.

Key’s appointment of Fleming raises other questions too. It is common knowledge within the game that some top level coaches have been put off the role by the necessity to work with McCullum, who remains in charge of the white ball teams and already commands the unswerving loyalty of many of England’s players. With an Ashes series and a 50 over World Cup coming up in close proximity next year, the potential for clashes between red ball and white ball coaches is obvious. Perhaps that is why Key and the rest of the ECB hierarchy decided that the only possible solution was to employ one of McCullum’s mates. Indeed, Fleming and McCullum are more than friends, they are also business partners in a company called QualityNZ which exports New Zealand meat and other products to India as well as being co-founders of CricHQ, a digital cricket platform that has run into endless financial trouble and was bailed out by a personal loan of $50,000 dollars from Fleming himself towards the end of last year. Embarking on a new direction in English cricket by appointing a close friend and business partner of the departing coach is a questionable decision to say the least and raises questions about whether a clean break with the Bazball era has actually been made.

Fleming will not take up his post until the tour of South Africa this coming winter. In the meantime, Marcus Trescothick will be in caretaker charge for the home series against Pakistan where he will work alongside Root. The next twelve months could well prove to be an eventful ride.

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Glorious Guildford

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There are few pleasures in life quite like a day spent at a county outground. I am sure you all have a favourite one. Perhaps it is the picturesque surroundings of the Cheltenham Festival or Scarborough where the history of Yorkshire cricket drips from every blade of grass.

Mine has always been the Guildford Cricket Club, where Surrey first played a first class game all the way back in 1938.

From the outside the ground seems unremarkable. It is situated next to a busy main round on the outskirts of town and has boards covering the mesh fencing to prevent those without tickets from getting to see a free days play. It would be very easy to drive past without even noticing its existence.

However, once inside, the ground itself is a delight. When I last went, picnic chairs surrounded an immaculately kept playing area. There was a small members stand on one side and a village fete style catering tent offering homemade cakes and local tipples from the Guildford Brewery. At lunch and tea queues snaked around the ground for a 99 from the ice cream van parked near the gate.

I first visited the Guildford Festival in the summer of 2000 to watch Surrey play Yorkshire. As a junior Surrey member I was keen to see my county play as much as possible and to watch my heroes from closer quarters than the vast expanse of The Oval would allow.

I was also blessed to be growing up in the era of one of the finest teams the county has ever seen. A young Surrey fan at the turn of the century could look forward to seeing the guile and craft of Pakistani spinner Saqlain Mushtaq, the metronomic accruacy of veteran seamer Martin Bicknell and, England commitments permitting, the batting talents of Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe. I could also see my favourite cricketer, Alec Stewart.

I collected many autographs at Guildford over the years but Stewart’s moniker always eluded me. He was, without fail, the first player to rush off the field at the end of each session, before the children clutching autograph books had the chance to rush on. I always wondered if this was a deliberate ploy or whether he just really liked the Guildford lunches.  I even managed to miss out at his final Test match in 2003 as he was carried around The Oval on the shoulders of his teammates. Only current England team director Ashley Giles stopped to sign the open books of young fans on the boundary, although he quickly wished he hadn’t when one young fan asked for the shirt off his back.

Guildford did give me the opportunity to meet many other greats of the game, however and those encounters have lived long in my memory.

For instance, I felt far more sympathy for Darren Lehmann in his trials as Australian coach after recalling my encounter with him in 2001. The then Yorkshire captain sought me out in the crowd at a lunch interval to give me the autograph he had not had time to sign before play began. Nowadays, Lehmann coaches the county I currently watch, Northamptonshire. A fine job he is doing there, too.
Many of the Surrey lads were also very genial. Alex Tudor, in particular, always went out of his way to make time for young fans.

Guildford also afforded me the privilege of seeing some of the greats of English batting in the years before they became famous. In 2003 I was able to watch a young Andrew Strauss strike a graceful 82 for Middlesex in a match where the crowd atmosphere at times resembled a football game. I eagerly told anyone who would listen that he would soon be making runs for England.

One year later I was privileged to be at Lord’s on a sunny May afternoon as he proved that prediction to be true.

As teens turned into twenties, work and social life slowly replaced sunny afternoons at Guildford.

In 2018, however, I decided to go back.  I was truly glad that I did. Many things have changed in this world in the last 20 years but the beauty of county cricket is that, to all intents and purposes, it is one of the few things that remains the same. Apart from a striking new wooden pavilion, so had Guildford Cricket Club itself. Even Alec Stewart is still in residence, not as a player any longer but as Surrey’s Director of Cricket.

Much has been made of the imminent demise of the county game but, when you go to outgrounds such as Guildford, it is possible to believe that there is life in the old dog yet.

Sadly, the ground has had its’ struggles since, however. In 2025 it required a £114,000 bailout from Guildford Council just to stay afloat. I will be covering this story more in depth in a future article but it makes me reflect on how fragile this thing we love actually is.

With the advent of this year’s IPL linked Hundred tournament this week I am reminded of two flags I saw tied to the fences at the side of the ground on my last Guildford visit. One of them proclaimed the death of county cricket; “killed by the ECB with 100 balls”. They flags had been placed there by a group calling themselves The Peter May Boys, which sounded like cricket’s version of football’s famous “ultras” groups. I considered whether the game needs more groups like this. Maybe every county should have its’ own ultra group, providing a voice for those of us who liked things just the way they were before the ECB’s shiny new invention, or perhaps that’s not really our style.

Either way, I hope grounds like Guildford will still be there to enjoy for generations to come.

 The Cricket Chronicle is only just getting started. I will be publishing regularly on here, including analysis and views on the game, exclusive interviews, historical piecess and long form writing. Please consider subscribing to get exclusive subscriber only content, thank you

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Writing about cricket makes me both angry and sad. That may seem like an odd way to introduce a new cricket blog but allow me to explain. When I write about football, for all the game’s myriad flaws, I can write flowing prose with whimsy and objectivity. However, cricket feels different and the reason is simple. It is a game that is being systematically destroyed to a point where it is unrecognisable from what it was merely 20 years ago.

At this point I can already hear those who may point out, with some justification, that all sports have changed in that time. Football has become immeasurably more commercial and controlled by nefarious technological systems such as VAR. However, to make that arguement misses one fundamental point . A football match is still contested between 11 players over 90 minutes and its’ teams and competitions derive context from a deep and storied history. Most professional football clubs in Europe are over a century old, while the majority of league and international competitions have a similarly lengthy history.

Cricket however, is different. Not only has a game that once took 5 days, sometimes even longer in the era of timeless tests, been condensed into a 3 hour format but the money and power in the game is now concentrated within teams and leagues that were not even imagined two decades ago. In the case of the Hundred, which now takes up the golden month of an English summer, many of the teams did not exist 6 months ago while none did so a mere 5 years ago.

Modern cricket suffers from a lack of context and meaning. A player will pay a few games in the Carribbean Premier League, before hightailing it to the Hundred and disappearing just in time to pop up in the ILT20 in Abu Dhabi. Yes, I know some of the timings are wrong for these tournaments but I simply do not care. The fact that the majority of cricket fans could not pinpoint when all the various franchise competitions are occurring proves the futility of many of them beyond a licence to print money. Therein lies the main problem. Sport and money have an uneasy alliance but the balance must always remain, at least marginally, in favour of the idea that the money exists to facilitate the sport. Football is a prime example. The recent World Cup has been a shameless FIFA cash grab but, even so, all of the ghastly Americanised commercialism exists as a backdrop to the contest on the pitch, a competition for a trophy almost 100 years old between 48 of the over 200 nations on earth.

The game of cricket has now surely crossed the rubicon into a form of entertainment that exists primarly to make money. Profit no longer supports the growth of the sport, the sport exists to support the growth of profit. Once a game reaches that point it loses all possible meaning and soul. That is the tipping point that I believe our sport has now reached.

So the question begs, why continue to write about it? For new readers of my writing, I should explain that I previously ran a blog called The Bouncer which began as a simple website commenting on hot topics in the game and reflecting on matches. However, it soon became something far deeper and more controversial as I investigated the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal at Yorkshire CCC. Over the course of four months in 2024, I spoke to almost everyone involved in the case and produced a 7 part investigative report that earned me many readers, much conversation and debate, but very little personal reward in terms of future work within the game, forcing me to step away from journalism to pursue other career paths. I was, though, fortunate to get to know some wonderful people who had stood bravely for truth and justice for those whose lives had been immeasurably and, I believe, unfairly affected by the scandal.

However, I digress. My reasons for returning to cricket journalism are simple. I believe despite everything I have just written here, that there is still a great deal to celebrate within our game. The County Championship provides a beacon to those of us who believe there is a deeper and more satisfying world beyond the latest tweet or YouTube clip. Test cricket, though shunted to the margins by the franchise world, is still the truest and most challenging sporting examination ever created. That is why it is called a “test” after all, because that’s what it is.

An American sitcom writer once described environmentalism as “preserving what’s already gone”. Sometimes being a cricket writer can feel like that. I’m more optimistic though. Instead of preserving what’s already gone we need to fight to protect what’s left because if we lose it, it will be gone forever. The history and culture of our game, particularly “red ball cricket”, to use the ghastly modern parlance, is too precious a thing to lose. To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, we must not allow our game to go quietly into that good night, we must rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That’s what I intend to do on this site and I hope you will join me. Please consider subscribing too, if you do then maybe I can do this full time one day.

Yours in the love of cricket,

Billy Crawford